1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an improvement of a small-sized mobile lift used to transfer a physically handicapped person and a heavy object, and more particularly to a lift used suitably when a physically handicapped person gets on and off a passenger car, and when baggage is loaded into a passenger car and unloaded therefrom.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to transfer a physically handicapped person who needs to be nursed because of his disease, the injury to him and his old age, a lot of labor is required. Under the circumstances, nursing lifts of various systems and shapes for helping a nursing person have heretofore been proposed.
The typical nursing lifts include a lift fixed to a frame of a bed and used when a person to be nursed is transferred from the bed onto a wheelchair, and a lift fixed to a ceiling and a fixed support post and used when a person to be nursed is made to take a bath. However, such fixed type nursing lifts cannot be used, for example, when a person to be nursed sitting on a wheelchair gets on a passenger car and gets off the same to sit on the wheelchair outdoors. In view of the matter, small-sized mobile lifts have come to be proposed in recent years.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 137757/1993 proposes a nursing lift for vehicles, formed by providing a parallel link mechanism on a substantially U-shaped base member having traveling wheels, and fixing a seat type suspension member to the horizontal portion of the link mechanism which is positioned above the parallel link mechanism. This lift enables the suspension member to be inserted between the bottom of a person to be nursed sitting on a wheelchair and a seat of the wheelchair, the suspension member to be lifted by the horizontal portion of the lift, the base member of the life to be then moved under a chassis of a passenger car, and the lifted person to be nursed to be transferred onto a seat of the passenger car and sat thereon.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No 580/1997 proposes a lift formed by setting up removable support posts on a base frame provided with casters on a lower surface thereof, and connecting a horizontal tubular arm to upper end portions of the support posts via a gear case. In this lift, a lifting rope is fixed to a retainer seat for putting thereon an object person, and this rope is taken up around a shaft provided in the tubular arm to enable the person being nursed to be lifted. The base frame and support posts are formed so that they can be disassembled and assembled.
However, the lift disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 137757/1993 has large overall dimensions, so that it is difficult to transport the same. Therefore, even when an object person is put on an automobile with effort by using the lift, a special lift for making the object person to get off the automobile is required in each of his destinations. In order to stably lift an object person, a width of the substantially U-shaped base frame necessarily increases, so that it becomes impossible that the lift makes a small turn.
In the lift disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 580/1997, a considerably large force is required to lift a physically handicapped person with the rope taken up around the shaft in the tubular arm. Although the transporting of the lift is possible, the lift assembling and disassembling work is troublesome.
Therefore, in the present invention, it has been decided to discuss a traveling lift which enables a person to be nursed to be lifted and lowered easily even by a small force, and the lift itself to be formed simply and foldably to small overall dimensions and light weight and transported easily by an automobile.